Last week at my West Elm DIY event, I taught a group of crafty ladies to make a festive felt heart garland to celebrate Valentine’s Day. I thought I’d share the instructions here so you can make one at home too! First, using two pieces of felt layered on top of each other, trace and cut out two hearts. Next, using about an arms length of embroidery floss, tie off the end and begin sewing the two layers together (starting at the tip of the heart). When you get to about 3/4 of the way around the heart shape, you want to stop sewing and stuff your heart. We used pillow batting for the garlands and pins, and loose dried lavender to make sachets. Once the heart is stuffed, pinch the layers together with your hands and sew the remaining 1/4 of the open heart closed, tying off the end with a knot. Once you have your stuffed heart, you can sew on a pin to the back, add hook to make it a hanging sachet for your closet, or string multiple hearts together to make a sweet garland for your bar cart or mantle!All photos via the fabulous Bring To Light Photography!

I’m so excited to share a few pictures from my event at West Elm Fenway a few weeks ago! It was such a fun day — I mean, really, is there anything better than hanging out with your girls and making cute things? I’ll post a tutorial this week with step by step instructions so you can make your own felt heart garlands (or pins! or sachets!). Thanks to my bestie Taz from Bring to Light Photography for taking these fabulous pictures, the lovely folks at West Elm Fenway for hosting, Sweet Cupcakes for making sure we had tasty bites to snack on, and for all of the lovely friends, blogging buddies, and new faces that came out to craft with me! Let’s do it again, OK?

I am totally behind and haven’t brought out a single holiday decoration at my house yet this year. That has to change this weekend, I’m in the market for a cute little apartment sized tree that I plan to wrap up with vintage tinsel and big twinkly bulb lights. But in the meantime, I’m adding a little festive flair to the blog today and rounding up a few of the Christmas decorations I have my eye on! Have you started decorating yet?

A few snaps from my fabulous cousin’s wedding this weekend — it was a gorgeous day and a gorgeous venue! She had perfect little touches like paper fans to keep guests cool and fun paper garlands and pom-poms on the chairs and around the reception. I’m a sucker for the details! Not to mention I had so much fun with my siblings dancing the night away — what’s better than that?

With all of the craziness in Boston and some last-minute wedding planning, I took an unintentional two-week blogging hiatus, oops! But I’m back in action with some very cute pictures to share, a few sneak peeks of the amazing bridal shower my best friends and sister threw for me over the weekend. I can not wait to share all of the gorgeous pictures of their hard work but in the meantime I had to post a few snapshots from my phone of the decorated mantel that I opened presents in front of, and of course the money shot: a giant stack of ombre macarons on the dessert table.

It normally takes about 3 days to fully recover from New Year’s Eve, right? I’m working on it — it’s so hard to get back into ‘reality’ mode after a long holiday! Which is why I’m a little late sharing some pictures of our annual New Year’s Eve bash. Having a few extra days off after Christmas gave me the time to craft some fun decorations and think up some tasty dishes and cocktails. It was a great way to kick off 2013, and I hope it sets the tone for many more fabulous parties to come this year (like, ahem, a pretty exciting wedding coming up in May). How did you celebrate the New Year?

West Elm just introduced their holiday line and I’m quite pleased to see a fun collaboration with Confettisystem! It might be a little early to start planning for the holidays, but these ornaments and garlands are so festive, I think you could use them all year round.

This weekend I had so much fun hosting a bridal shower for one of my girlfriends. Girly does not even begin to describe it. We had pink lemonade, a cake made out of pink donuts, pink cupcakes with glittery sprinkles, pink rock candy, and lots of sparkly pink and silver garland draped around the room. I had such a fun time preparing for it, and even more fun catching up with the ladies over cocktails and party games.

Somehow Halloween snuck up on me this year, is it really the end of October already? To get in the holiday spirit I’ve rounded up a few seasonal decor items to give your place a dash of ghoulish party atmosphere. The glittery hanging bats from West Elm are my absolute favorite!